


Afterheat

by simplecoffee



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Aftermath of a Case, Carrying, Exhaustion, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Post-MI: Fallout, Post-Mission, Sleepy Cuddles, Team as Family, Touch, yes good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 22:18:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15872832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplecoffee/pseuds/simplecoffee
Summary: It's a hard job, averting the apocalypse; harder to remember how to breathe again after. Sometimes, after all, it's an apocalypse that began with you.





	Afterheat

**Author's Note:**

> yes hello I love this team of dorks

Ethan shuffles out of the compound wrapped in a thick Kashmiri blanket, and joins Luther on the bench swing.

"You said your goodbyes?" Luther asks, and he nods.

Jane's en route in a chopper to ferry them to Srinagar, where there's a Globemaster bound for home. Lane is airborne with the CIA, care of Erika Sloane herself. Ethan has a mug of hot chocolate clutched in his hands - marshmallows and all.

Julia loves her hot chocolate.

"Where's the crew?" says Luther gently.

"Out front," Ethan says, breath mingling with the steam. "Workin' the radio."

"Jane's an hour and a half out."

Ethan nods, and closes his eyes.

Kid looks fine, considering, but Luther knows _considering_ well. It's a hard job, averting the apocalypse; harder to remember how to breathe again after. Sometimes, after all, it's an apocalypse that began with you.

Luther's long since learned that you don't deal in guilt with a job like this. You give your thanks instead, you give your all, and you try to stop carrying more regret than you can bear. And then there's Ethan, waking from a hypothermic sleep and whispering, _I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

He's warm, now; at least enough to keep his dumb mouth shut.

Luther does his part, and lets him breathe. There are memories here for both of them, and still not quite enough air to go round. They're quiet together, as they often are, and Ethan fixes his gaze at a distance, as he sometimes does, and when he raises his mug to his lips, his hands shake, barely, once.

At length, he nudges Luther's knee with his own, and says, "Are you okay?"

"I'm good," Luther says, reaching a hand toward his shoulder as a question in return. Ethan nods minutely, allowing the touch, silently offers the hot chocolate, and Luther takes the mug and takes a sip, because it makes him smile.

It takes a few long minutes, waiting Ethan out when he's this wound up, but he finally breathes a careful sigh and lets himself curl inward. He's starting to flag, shaking a little despite both the hot drink and the blanket, so Luther's not completely surprised when his head comes to rest on his shoulder. The altitude's getting to everyone, but only one of them crashed a chopper and _then_ fought a terrorist for the key to a million lives.

Heaven knows, though, that they've all earned their rest. Benji and Ilsa are bruised and shaken from their shared ordeal, Alan Hunley's fighting for his life in a hospital in London, but as of today, the Apostles finally stand headless. Lane is caught, the glacier's clean, the immunization program worked, and John Lark is deader than dead and still as ugly as they come. They'll leave the cleanup to someone else, this time - maybe even the CIA. Meanwhile, he'll rub circles into Ethan's back as he shivers.

"Hey," he says gently, "hey, you. Bet you won't go climbing rocks on your next vacation, huh?"

Ethan punches him very softly in the ribs.

"Let's just go to the beach," he says. "How 'bout you take us all to the beach."

Luther grins. "You heal up quick and maybe I will. I'd like to see Benji tackle the waves."

"Got yourself a deal," Ethan sighs, then winces slightly and goes quiet. Luther braces him carefully as he sinks in closer, clearly exhausted all over again; thinks of Julia's parting instructions to put him on oxygen if he falters on the way home.

He's breathing fine.

Luther checks again. He's breathing _fine_.

"Hey, Ethan," he says, because he suddenly has to. "Thank you."

Ethan says quietly, "Shut up."

"You know I won't. _Thank you_. - I knew you could do it," Luther adds, deflecting, and Ethan makes a disgruntled huff against his shoulder. "Oh, you better believe I did. More to the point, I knew that if you _couldn't_ do it, nobody else could, and so we'd all be dead anyway."

"Cheerful. Your faith in me is terrifying."

"You forget, I've known you since you were yea high," Luther says. " _But,_ oh wait, that's right - you're still about yea high."

"You're not allowed to make me laugh," Ethan whispers, but he's grinning tiredly as he closes his eyes.

He's deep asleep in no time at all, and when the air begins to fill with the distant thrum of their ride, he doesn't wake. It's no matter; this is a crash he's fought against for way too long, and the landing site is close enough for Luther to haul him there himself. It's not like he hasn't carried the kid before - starting back when he was _really_ a kid.

Benji and Ilsa appear around the side of the compound as the chopper nears, identical solemnity in both their eyes as they walk toward the swing. There's been a lot for them to talk about, and Luther hopes they have; as such, Ilsa hangs back uncertainly, but Benji is babbling almost at once.

"Oh god, is he okay? Luther - wait, is he _sleeping_?"

"Easy, Benji," Luther says. "We agreed, no yelling at him till he's better."

Benji winces, reaches out with a gentleness that belies his panic, and lays a hesitant hand on Ethan's head. He doesn't stir.

"God, Ethan," Benji says, edging himself onto the swing beside them. "God, you maniac. I'll make Brandt put you on leave for _months_. I'll make you watch Saturday morning cartoons. Even the bad ones, and they are _so bad_."

"Benji."

"I'm going to make him watch the Smurfs," Benji reiterates. "And _like_ it."

"Benji," Luther says, reaching for him with the hand not holding Ethan. "Are you crying?"

"I'm not _crying_."

"What if Ethan wakes up and sees you're crying?"

Benji sniffs. "He'll hover. Can't have that."

"Damn right." Ethan gets upset when any of them's in pain; he hides it well, but he paces, and once tried very hard to make tea despite a broken hand. They may be hurt today, but no one died on his watch, he didn't die on theirs, and the least they can all do for him is hold it together, just for a while.

They don't leave each other's side after missions, especially after missions like this. They keep Benji within shouting distance, Jane away from things to smash, and they _don't_ leave Ethan to hurt alone, to sleep alone after saving the world. Ilsa will fit right in, if she wants to.

If she's allowed.

If she knows she can.

"He's okay," Luther says, voice almost lost in the drone of the helicopter landing, watching her watch the three of them with something unreadable, unbearable, in her eyes. "Just don't want to wake him for a few hours."

She nods, almost expressionless, and says, "I understand." And then the moment passes, as moments do.

Jane disembarks from the chopper, dishevelled but professional, still in her tac gear from her mission in Tashkent. She jogs up to them, leaving her pilot to keep the engines warm.

"You guys okay?" she says quietly, and gets nods all round. "Ethan?"

"Shush," Benji says, "let the walking miracle sleep."

Jane smiles, faintly grim, and doesn't ask. "Sounds about right." And then, "We should go."

They should - there's nothing left here, anyway; nothing but a valley free of nuclear fallout. So Luther lets Benji make their final ground checks, and carefully gathers their fearless leader into his arms.

He sighs in his sleep, once, nothing more, the fact a mission dossier in itself. Jane keeps a hand at Luther's back as they walk, Benji close beside her, Ilsa not far behind, and between them they get him settled in for the journey, blankets and all. There's quiet murmuring between the women, introductions, route maps, and Benji runs a hand down his face and lets them do the talking.

They're well past liftoff when the evening sun breaks through the clouds, and Ilsa smiles. It's all it takes; the silence lifts and they're all alight, a spark lit on a mountainside, keeping them warm. They'll be debriefed at touchdown, fight their battles again, but they're going home together, alive, as a team.

And when Ethan starts half-awake, terror in his eyes, Luther grabs his shoulder and holds on till he's tracking. Till he sees him, and Benji on his other side, and Jane and Ilsa smiling across the tiny aisle, and blinks an affirmation, fading as quickly as he woke.

"I gotcha," Luther says, watching him breathe, still, after all these years. "We all gotcha."

**Author's Note:**

> _**Afterheat** , n._ the heat generated in a nuclear reactor after it has been shut down, produced by residual radioactivity in the fuel elements.


End file.
